There are several conventional techniques to produce an electronic document. Some examples include text editors, word processors, spreadsheet programs, graphics programs, web editors, XLM editors, presentation editors, and integrated applications. However, each of these techniques suffers from the problem of creating non-portable documents. A non-portable document is platform dependent. A platform may refer to the hardware and operating system of a computing system. Some example platforms include: Sun Ultra™ 40 Workstation running Linux, the Hewlett Packard (HP) hardware running the HP version of UNIX (HPUX), and Intel® processor running Microsoft® Windows®. Thus, many platform dependent documents either cannot be viewed in different platforms or do not look the same from platform to platform.
Several electronic documents require a specific tool to view them. For example, many word processing files cannot be viewed without the specific word processing application in which the files were created. However, a user may wish to view a document without launching or executing an entirely new application or purchasing a new application. In contrast, statically formatted documents may be platform independent electronic documents. For example, a statically formatted document may be created in one platform or application, processed by a server using a second platform or application, and viewed in a third platform or application (hereafter application): That is, a statically formatted document may look the same wherever it is processed or viewed. For example, a static document may look the same whether it is placed on the world wide web, sent as an email attachment, or printed. Some conventional techniques embed advertisements in a document, which is undesirable to users attempting to preserve the appearance of their work, files, documents, graphics, or other work product. In other conventional examples, advertisements may be appended or attached to a document, but when printed, the advertisement also appears, reducing the usability and desirability for these conventional applications. A statically formatted document may be referred to as resolution independent. In some examples, a resolution independent document may be a statically formatted document configured to display in a substantially similar format, regardless of the native application being used. In other words, a resolution independent document appears the same independent of the resolution of the display program. Examples of statically formatted documents are documents formatted using Adobe® Portable Document Format (PDF).
There are multiple techniques of producing statically formatted documents. A first technique includes the use of a static formatting generator, such as Adobe® Acrobat® software, which allows the creation of statically formatted documents and the conversion of electronic documents to statically formatted electronic documents. A second way to convert documents to static formatting is to utilize an on-line web hosted static formatting generation, or conversion, service. The web hosted static formatting generation service allows a user to access a web site, submit an electronic document, and receive a statically formatted document in return. However, these techniques require a monetary commitment (e.g., subscription fee, one-time-pay-for performance, and the like). In some examples, the static formatting application requires an upfront investment (e.g., license fee, per-user or per-seat fee, and others). Some users may not have a need to use a static formatting generation service with sufficient volume to warrant the above-described financial commitments or other payment methods. Thus, what is needed is a method of producing a statically formatted document without the limitations of conventional techniques.